HK crisis has become a test of future US-China ties

Impeachment proceedings have overshadowed another riveting drama half a world away: ongoing pro-democracy protests in an iconic city.

Peaceful marches of millions of Hong Kong citizens have given way to violent student protests as Beijing continues to curb the city’s freedoms. Meantime, an almost unanimous vote in Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act this week to support the protesters, as Beijing fumes and a reluctant President Trump prepares to sign it.

How these protests end — whether in disaster or compromise — will resonate far beyond Hong Kong’s 7.4 million people. Although Hong Kong is a part of China, it is becoming a worrying symbol of Beijing’s attitude toward the rest of the world.

Talks with pro-democracy activists, including students at a besieged campus, left me with one overwhelming impression: This was a self-inflicted crisis by pro-Beijing leaders that never needed to happen.

And it has been unnecessarily inflamed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s unwillingness to tolerate dissent. When the British returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, Beijing guaranteed that the territory would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy for 50 years” under a mini-constitution known as the Basic Law. This included an independent judiciary, and increasingly free elections.

This “one country, two systems” framework operated tolerably well until Xi came to power in 2012. As China’s limited political freedoms were repressed, autonomy gradually eroded in Hong Kong.

The current crisis began in February, when Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam introduced an extradition bill that would allowed the territory’s citizens to be sent for trial in China where courts are subject to Communist Party dictates. Nearly one-fourth of the city’s population took to the streets in protest.

What enabled the crisis to explode and devolve into violence was Lam’s unwillingness to hold a dialogue with protesters who want to preserve Hong Kong’s rule of law.

“Beijing wants to portray the whole thing as a color revolution (the name for popular revolts in Eastern Europe and elsewhere), all rioters and people pushing for independence,” I was told by Hong Kong’s former government chief secretary, Anson Chan. “But this is about reclaiming freedom and responsibilities we used to enjoy under the Basic Law and which Beijing has been steadily eroding. They are creating a whole generation who will harbour anger towards Beijing.”

What makes Hong Kong’s trauma an international problem is the attitudes Beijing has shown toward a different political system. Rather than fire Lam, or press her to find a compromise, Xi has backed her stonewalling. Beijing is now trying to overrule Hong Kong court decisions.

And Chinese leaders have blamed the protests on a supposed “black hand,” meaning backing from the CIA. There is zero evidence of such backing. Indeed, at one point, Trump, in his eagerness for a trade deal, promised Xi that the US would remain quiet on the protests.

“Hong Kong’s position as China’s premier financial center depends on an independent judiciary and rule of law,” says Chan. “But Beijing has an imperfect understanding of what makes Hong Kong tick. Some political liberalisation is necessary to sustain the economic system.”

It is this imperfect understanding, that makes Xi’s behaviour towards Hong Kong so unnerving, a self-inflicted wound that has turned a solvable problem into an international crisis. And an indicator of inability to tolerate criticism at home or abroad.

In mid-August, Trump tweeted that he had “zero doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it.” Yet many in Hong Kong believe Xi wants the crisis to continue, and violence to grow, as a pretext for crushing autonomy.

That would be a much greater self-inflicted wound.